Richard
Schurmann Electronics Engineer Curriculum Vitae
VDTP
P.A.S.
Consultants
Manufacture
research buoys for deployment on antarctic ice flows.
Zodiac
Australia http://www.zodiac.com.au/public/home
During this time,
Zodiac used to manufacture swimming pool chlorinators and
other swimming pool related equipment, using imported electronic
sub-assemblies that are designed in-house. I was engaged to take
design responsibility for a revision of one of their popular
chlorinator designs andto contribute to the delevopment of a new
model.
The work involved switched mode power supply design, and the development of measures for Standards compliance. Modifications to the existing design solved a problem with surge sensitivity. Australian conditions make more stringent demands than IEC Standards. The work on the new model required difficult interaction with the consumer products marketing people.
Aerosonde
Pty. Ltd http://www.aerosonde.com/ Aerosonde promote themselves this way: “Aerosonde is a strategic business of AAI Corporation, an operating unit of Textron Systems, a Textron Inc. company. We bring small unmanned aircraft system capabilities to the military and scientific communities, both in the U.S. and internationally. Aerosonde’s headquarters, which also serves as the Aerosonde aircraft manufacturing facility, is located in Victoria, Australia. Final Aerosonde aircraft integration is accomplished at AAI in its Hunt Valley, Md location. Flight operations are conducted in Victoria, Australia, and at Wallops Flight Facility in the United States and at various customer sites.” Aerosonde started out (as their name implies) building vehicles for carrying a payload of atmospheric research instrumentation. The sale to the American principal represented a move to capture a wider and international market, which appears to be mainly military. I was employed in the electronics production area. The work included electronic assembly work, testing, development of testing methods, design of test jigs. The work was only short term as it related to the completion of a particular contract.
Lessons
learned.
Hydrix
(http://www.hydrix.com/) Full time employment under the title “Senior Engineer”
Principal
Engineer in several projects developing swimming pool
chlorinators, and smaller contribution to other
projects. Australian
Model Engineering Magazine In my own column named “Sparks 'n' Arcs” I am writing a series of articles for Australian Model Engineering Magazine to explain electronics to a readership with a strong mechanical background. A sample of these are to be found at http://home.exetel.com.au/rwombat/Sparks_n_Arcs/
Lessons
learned.
Omnitron
Technologies http://www.omnitron.com.au/
Design
and development for manufacturing of a heavy current transmitter
for geophysical research. I have made some
advancements to the art in which very fast on and off transitions
are required in current waveforms of 50 amps magnitude.
Lessons
learned.
Air-Met
Scientific Pty. Ltd. http://www.airmet.com.au/ Technical Services Manager
Airmet
was a small company situated in Blackburn which was a gas
contaminant monitoring equipment merchant, and a developer of air
contaminant monitoring equipment.
I
wrote quality manual procedures for design and design project
management.
I
developed an engineering documentation and release system based
on html files and hyperlinks between
files. This provides all information
required by the purchasing officer
to initiate orders on contractors to bring about a production
run, and all technical information required by in-house staff
performing final assembly and calibration/config and service. The
work instructions and other documents in this system form part of
Air-Met's ISO9000 Management System. I was responsible for the
management of all production issues and engineering aspects of
outsourcing of pcb assemblies. However this system was set up so
that repeat ordering will take place without engineer input.
Lessons
learned.
Nilsen
Industrial Electronics (This company no longer exists. No
web site) 1993 – 2004
When
I joined Nilsen again,
(see below) the electronic kilowatt hour meter that
I had been project leader for the development of in 1982 and
1983, had been in production for some years. The new task
was to develop an enhanced model. One aim
was to change from Class 2 (plus or minus 2% accuracy) to Class 1
(plus or minus 1% accuracy).
Matching
the phase response of the voltage and current inputs.
Introduction
of pseudo random sequence generated dither signal Other projects that I was responsible for included:
"Smart
Probe" optical reading head with built-in protocol
conversion. This device is for electricity
meter reading in combination with a palm-top computer. Hardware
design (including die-cast case) and software - 6805 assembler
code. I was not a team leader in this role, but I was responsible for mentorship of younger engineers. Developed working protocols for maximum synergy for groups with diverse skills.
Variant
management system I developed the architecture and the code for a computer program which ran the process from the Pat Code to the Engineeering parts List and the pcb loading drawing for the particular build. This was done by modularizing the circuit and prescribing algorithms for the inclusion or exclusion of each module according to PatCode content. The system was implemented and provided a huge reduction in cost in the introduction of each new variant.
Nilsen
Industrial Electronics had inherited a highly developed
development and manufacturing documentation system, which
predated ISO 9001. This was adapted to ISO 9001 with minimal
change during my tenure. I contributed to this. Interestingly,
there was one area that remained untouched by these formalities.
This was the design process. A result was the evolution of a
splitting of project management into two parts. One role was the
documentation of a plan for a development and the generation of
commentary for senior management on how the actual development
process (in progress) compared with the plan. The role for this
was formally defined, and I played no part in it. A second and
completely separate task was the actual conduct of the
development so that a design resulted that met the documented
requirements. I was responsible for this for many projects. Tasks
included:
Lessons
learned.
Ausmode
Power Systems/Exicom Australia
http://www.exicom.com.au/ Ringwood Ausmode Power Systems was a small company set up to design and manufacture power equipment for the telecommunications industry. In the telecommunications industry, it is conventional to power equipment from a DC supply that has a battery floating on it. The equipment that takes power from the mains and provides DC to power the excahnge and to charge the battery is traditionally called a “rectifier”. Ausmode was at the forefront of the introduction of switched mode technology to rectifiers which had hitherto been built around mains frequency power transformer and phase controlled SCRs for output control. After creating the bulk of the intellectual property in the rectifier product lines, and trading for a couple of years, Ausmode was sold to Exicom. Exicon thus became my employer. However despite the change of employer, I continued in the same job. Project Leader - Uninterruptible power supply (600 VA - for use with a pc.) True sine wave inverter and provision for synchronizing to mains on power restoration for seamless switch back. Project Leader - Supervisory board for 50 amp rectifier. Analogue and digital controller design. Control of heavy current circuits via fibre-optic link.
Project
Leader - Light-current parts of 450 amp and 1000 amp Distribution
Module I left Exicom because they closed the Melbourne design centre (Old Ausmode site), and could only offer me continuing employment in Sydney, which was not of interest.
Lessons
learned.
Futuretech
Pty. Ltd. Oakleigh Futurtech was a company formed by two ex employees of an HF radio manufacturer. As well as the design offices, there was a small-run manufacturing facility. Futuretech had some products of its own, and performed board loading for others. It was always on the lookout for the “Design and Build” (in small quantities) project. I was employed to manage the development of a frequency division multiplex equipment test system. This gave me the opportunity to delve much more deeply into the design of phase locked loops for demanding applications. This in turn led to the development of an agile multi frequency tone generator for L. M. Ericsson. For some time, I was the Project Leader for a hydrographer's telemetry system for the Dandenong Valley Authority. The constraints of the established project management methods were tight, but within these, I took responsibility for maximizing the productivity of the team by careful allocation of tasks and mentorship of team members. I left because, within that particular management structure, I was not able to contribute in ways that I believed the project required, and I was “head hunted” by Ausmode.
Lessons
learned
Schurmann
Design Pty. Ltd. , Warrandyte This was my own company. I worked from a “home office” with one technician. Several design projects were carried out. These were the early days of applying microprocessors to small products. I had contact with the people at the Ford Motor company warehouse, and they engaged me to take an investigatory trip to Detroit and Atlanta USA to evaluate radio link data terminal system. On my return, I reported favourably, and then installed and commissioned the system. This involved the manufacture of a special interface between the Ford Burroughs computer system and the radio terminal system.
Lessons
learned. Nielsen
Development Laboratory , Fitzroy and Heidelberg Started by Oliver J. Nielsen in 1916, this company grew into a major electrical equipment manufacturer and contractor. John Nielsen, (grandson of the founder) saw that the company provided everything to go in a domestic meter box except the kilowatt hour meter. He thus instigated the plan to develop one. The existing technology was one or two Ferraris disc meters and a time clock or ripple control receiver. The plan was to develop a single electronic meter that would perform all of these functions. I was employed as project leader. There is some controversy about who thought up what. However at the earliest part of the project, before other team members were brought in, I established some key principles. I saw the 50Hz mains waveform as a carrier. The rate at which energy is used is a varying quantity, and the waveform of this variation can be regarded as a signal that is used to amplitude modulate the 50Hz carrier. The useful bandwidth of this signal is quite a different thing from the bandwidth of the instantaneous voltage or current or power waveforms. Indeed, as the signal (rate of energy, or power) is to be integrated to get an energy, the bandwidth of the power signal can be reduced considerably without lowering the accuracy of the cumulative answer. As the cumulative answer is the result of the summation of very many samples, the samples themselves can have a much higher quantization error that is acceptable in the answer. Quite large random errors are acceptable in the samples, and these will disappear in the summation as long as they are not systematic. Important ideas were introduced about how to demodulate the signal from the carrier, but these were not all my own. I took this project to a stage where working prototypes had been demonstrated.
Lessons
learned
Hyteco
Pty. Ltd. , Clayton “Hyteco” was a hybrid name, for the arm of Ateco (Australian Tractor Equipment Company) that ran “Hyster” fork truck dealerships in Melbourne and Sydney. The dealerships thrived for some years and extended their trade into other warehouse equipment. They employed me to be trained in the USA on a product called the “Pathfinder”, which was a wire guidance system for warehouse trucks that work in very narrow aisles. This system used a 6.25 kHz current in the guidewire, and sensor coils to pick up the magnetic field surrounding this. A simple analogue computer determined steering requirements (for reverse as well as forward travel) from the sensor signals. I was the first person to implement this sort of technology in the Southern Hemisphere, and the first person to adapt the system to a vehicle that was not sold in the US. This was followed by the Hyteco Driverless Tractor System, which was my first project as Project Leader. The system consisted of a guidewire burried in the warehouse concrete floor and a number of vehicles that would follow programmed routes through the system. The project consisted of the equipment on the tractors to guide them and to control their programmed actions. The work consisted of the development of the guidance system, (based on Pathfinder practice) a communication system to work between the master controller and the tractors and the lineside equipment (location identifiers and turnouts), and adapting all this to tractors that were designed for operation by a driver. The communications system used the guidewire as the comms channel. Traffic from the central controller was by frequency shift keying of a sub-carrier added to the guidepath current. Communications to the central controller was by phase shift keying of a carrier which was derived by multiplying the guidepath frequency by 2.5. A special receiver was immune to the guidepath frequency and its harmonics, and provided for correction of phase drifts as a tractor moved around the system. I was responsible for managing a team of up to five employees and several outside contractors. The system was an engineering success, but not a commercial success. Each tractor, and the master controller were microprocessor controlled. 6800 microprocessors were used. I conducted training of the electric fork truck mechanics, and when the R&D department was closed, I developed a plan for the continuing support of the electronics products by the mechanics whilst I worked out a six month notice.
Lessons
learned.
Prodata
Pty. Ltd. , Collingwood
This
small company had a dealership for a series of accounting
machines made by Casio. The machines were programmed in a
language of their own which used a code of special symbols. The
Casio people (Japanese) had not taken up the idea of using Latin
alphabet characters in their programming language at that time.
The demands for sophistication had overtaken the capabilities of
the machines, so ProData utilized Digital Equipment Company PDP11
minicomputers and had a Casio accounting machine compiler
written.
Lessons
learned
Electronic Design Laboratories Pty. Ltd. 1975 This small company had a stock range of products, and pursued “design and build” projects. This was the day when Telecom still refused to allow subscribers to attach privately owned equipment to the network. Ordinary modems were owned by Telecom, and had to be rented as did an ordinary telephone. An exception was where there was a “special” need and a subscriber required equipment that Telecom could not supply. Like many other small companies at the time, EDL was very creative in inventing up “special” needs so that their customers could qualify for privately owned equipment attachment, and avoid the crippling rental of Telecom equipment. Burglar alarm equipment that would place a call and play a recording was popular. I worked on the design of this equipment and on equipment for a telemetry system for the gas utility (Gas and Fuel Corporation). This was the day when pcb layout was done with crepe tape on plastic film. I did a lot of this. In this job, I worked on my first project that used a microprocessor.
Lessons
learned
Nonoys
Pty. Ltd. , Dandenong Acoustic product production management and computer programming Nonoys was a manufacturing company that used a sheet metal factory to make specialist acoustic products. The two main product lines were duct silencers for the airconditioning industry, and acoustically rated doors. It had been intended to set up an acoustics laboratory, and I was employed to run this. There were delays in setting this up, and I was engaged in assistant factory management and computer programming. This was before the days of the “personal computer”, but Wang made a machine that they called a calculator, but which served the purpose of a personal computer. It was programmed in BASIC. I developed programs for the costing of manufacture of standard products in different sizes. Nonoys had provided a large number of silencers for a run-out of air conditioning in schools, a federal government initiative. Then we had the Khemlani affair. The government couldn't pay. Along with many others, Nonoys had to cut back. The laboratory was put on hold and I had to leave.
Lessons
learned
1973
Final year at Swinburne
Lessons
learned 1973-1974
Tafe teacher RMIT
Lessons
learned Carr
and Wilkinson - Acoustic Consultants At the beginning of 1968, this acoustic consultancy practice advertised for two positions. The first was for an acoustic consultant, and the second was for a laboratory technician. I applied for the first job, but my application was deemed to be for the second. I was not successful in getting this job and took work at Seimens. I was disappointed, and my father persuaded me to write to Carr and Wilkinson and assure them of my continuing interest. This I reluctantly did. Three months later they contacted me and told me that the job was now available for me if I still wanted it. Believing that I had been successful in obtaining the acoustical consultant's position, I quit my job at Seimens and presented for work at C&W as soon as I could. The premises were just over the road from Swinburne, and I continued there as a part time student for all my time at C&W. At first, I was put to work with electronics. A noise generator had been designed for providing “background sound”, a technique that was new then, to raise the background noise level to improve privacy and to minimize distraction. This saved many of the newly fashionable “open plan” offices from failure. The noise generators were made in very small numbers. I was in charge of manufacturing as well as some further electronic product development. The practice had a laboratory for acoustic measurements, and I soon became responsible for running this, managing many testing and development projects. I expanded the laboratory facility, particularly the provision for a quiet air supply for testing air conditioning fittings. I set up a variable speed drive for the fan and facilities for air flow measurement. In this role, I invented my dual reservoir manometer, and instrument that combined a manometer and a simple analogue computer performaing a subtraction. This did not have a big impact at the time, but the work was transferred directly into an electrical analogue in a special shunt for the Nilsen Meter in 2002.
Lessons
learned. I left to pursue my studies for a full time final year.
Siemens
Industries , Richmond In 1968, Siemens had manufacturing facilities in Church Street Richmond. One factory was devoted to the manufacture of frequency division multiplexing equipment for the telephone industry. I worked there for only a few months in the Testing Department.
I
was repairing circuit boards that carried double balanced
modulators, all made with discrete transistors. Many
of the modulators (maybe all?) were single sideband, and
elaborate filters with pot core inductors were used to select the
required sideband. Colleagues of mine adjusted the pot
core inductors on special test sets. Unfortunately, the filter
design was obscured, and the set up consisted of instructions
such as “Adjust pot core three until the meter points to
7”. When one of the filters did not pass the test, it was
very hard to imagine what the problem could be. There was no
communication between the design team and us factory workers.
Lessons
learned
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